Where the Wild Things Are
by HanaSyoubu
Summary: A collection of individual snippets that took place during the Winchester childhood and teenage years.
1. The Mommy Problem

_**Fic-SPN: The Mommy Problem**_

**Title:** The Mommy Problem  
**Author:** Hana  
**Fandom:** Supernatural  
**Rating:** G  
**Related Episode:** None  
**Genre:** Vignette, Pre-Series, Childhood!Fic, Fluff  
**Word Count:** 378  
**Summary:** Young Dean and Sam and quality time.  
**Disclaimer:** Not Mine. Blah blah blah. Fishcake.  
**Author Notes:** This quite randomly popped into my head. Trying out a new style, and still working on getting young Dean and Sam's voices in my head. Many thanks to Em for a quick beta. Questions, critique and comments are most welcome.

Thank you for those of you who took the time to read and review _Here, Today_!! I've replied to all the signed reviews, and thank you, hermitme, annie, and EFW!. :)

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Dean,_ Sammy asked his brother one night, _where's our mommy?_

_What?_ His brother looked at him like he had just swallowed a frog.

_David said everybody has a mommy. And he said I'm weird, because I don't have a mommy._ Sammy wiggled deeper into their nest of pillows and blankets and closer to Dean. He knew he was a big boy now and big boys don't snuggle, but he really really wanted to so he did anyway.

_David is stupid. Don't listen to him,_ Dean said. _We have a mommy._

_We do?_

_Of course._ His brother replied, in that voice he used when he told him things like 'of course the sky's blue, Sammy'.

_Where is it?_

_She, not it, Sammy._ Dean corrected him, and he stayed quiet for a very long time. He thought Dean might be asleep, but then his brother said, _Mom's... she went to a place very far away._

He wondered why she did that, so he asked Dean, _why?_

_She... Sometimes, things happen, Sammy._ His brother answered, in that quiet voice he used when he told Sammy secrets, secrets like Dean was keeping little kittens underneath the porch and he had been feeding them his milk from breakfast.

Sammy didn't know what that meant, but it sounded important. _Will she come back to see us?_

_No. She can't come back, not for a very long time,_ Dean told him, _but Dad said she can still see us._

_She can?_

_Yes. Dad said so. And I know she wants me to take care of you._

_Did mommy tell you that?_

_She didn't have to. I just know it._

_Why?_

_'Cause I'm your older brother. There're things I just know._

_Why?_

_Because._ Dean just told him. _Besides, big boys don't say 'mommy'. That's for babies. We say 'mom'. Next time, you tell David that he's a big fat stupid baby. You got that?_

_Yes._

_Good. Why aren't you asleep yet, anyway?_

_M'not tired._ He told Dean, even though he couldn't keep his eyes open. _Read it again, Dean._

_Again?_

_Yes, please?_ He blinked and looked at his brother.

_Oh, fine._ Dean said, sounding like he's mad but Sammy knew he wasn't really, as he opened the book to its first page again and started reading, _the night Max wore his wolf suit and made mischief of one kind..._

The End

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"The night Max wore his wolf suit and made mischief of one kind..." is the first sentence from _Where the Wild Things Are_ by Maurice Sendak. 


	2. Guns Not Butter

**_SPN Fic: Guns Not Butter (Gen)_**  
**Title:** Guns Not Butter  
**Author:** Hana  
**Fandom:** Supernatural  
**Rating:** PG  
**Related Episode:** None  
**Genre:** Vignette  
**Word Count:** 692  
**Summary:**_When Sammy was ten, for a few months or so, Dean went through a baking phase._  
**Disclaimer:** Not Mine. Eric Kripke and CW owns them. Blah blah blah. Fishcake.  
**Author Notes:** Many thanks to Em, my beta, for her everlasting patience and for spoiling me rotten. It started out as a fluffy drabble. Look how it turned out. sigh

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I.

When Sammy was ten, for a few months or so, Dean went through a baking phase. It started like this: school fundraising, bake sale, homemade cookies, puppy-dog eyes.

_Please, Dean?_

_Fine._

Whatever.

Butter, flour, eggs, sugar and milk – baking's kind of like the chemistry labs at school anyway. No big deal. The right ingredients combined at the right amounts heated at the right temperature for the right length of time. He's pretty good at chemistry.

He remembered Mom. Her hands, warm and steady, wrapped around his, sifting flour, mixing dough. Making cookies. He remembered the stickiness on his fingers, smudges on clothes, sniffing the vanilla made him wrinkle his nose. Milk spilled in a white pool on the dark-green counter. Melted chocolate chips tasted sweet when he licked them from his palms. The smell of cookies baking. Dad's smile, when he came home and found the two of them perched in front of the oven window, waiting.

Sammy never had Mom's cookies. Maybe Dean owed him that.

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II.

He looked things up in the library after school, for recipes and what not, while he waited for Sammy to finish soccer practice. He must say though, surprisingly, this kind of research had its benefits - who would've thought the cookbook section was the perfect pickup spot? Certainly not him, but now he knew better. Might have to take up cooking, after all.

The first batch fell apart like burnt bones, and only a little less salted. The second time didn't count, because nobody should expect him to pay attention to the oven or anything else, really, when Cindy Crawford was in spandex on TV. Third time, the cookies came out smelling all right, even if they weren't exactly round but more like frogs after a tragic automobile incident. Sammy, upon eating, declared that they were the best cookies he'd ever had, then promptly ordered four dozen more for each of his three bake sales to come. But hey, the kid liked broccoli too.

He thought they didn't taste right, but he wasn't sure why.

He guessed they were too sweet, so the next time he used less sugar, but then they were too bland. He tried again, more butter, and again, less milk, and again, more eggs, less flour. Real vanilla. Different chocolate chips. Sammy loved his cookies. But they didn't taste right.

They never did. Sammy just didn't know any better.

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III.

Dad sat at the kitchen table, letting Dean pressed a wet dishcloth onto a shallow cut, just above his right eye. Red smudges on his cheek. The cloth was cold in Dean's hand, his fingers sticky from drying blood. Dad came home from "talking" to people in bars, and his leather jacket smelled of Scotch and cigarettes, blood and sweat. The smoky scents made his nose itch.

_Had dinner yet, Dad?_

_No._

_I'll go heat up the leftovers._

_It's okay, Dean_, Dad told him, voice tired. Dad's hand reached up and squeezed his briefly, solid and warm, taking over pressing the dishcloth on the cut. He nodded once, and went over to the sink to wash his hands. He took out the bottle of Advil from one cupboard, a glass from another and filled it with water. He went to the bathroom to get the first-aid kit.

When Dean came back, Dad had left the dishcloth in the sink, and had a half-eaten cookie in one hand. His father stood stone still, eyes closed, then he opened them and smiled at Dean like he wanted to cry.

_I'll be damned. These taste just like Mary used to make, son._

That night, after Dad went to bed and Sammy was sound asleep on the pullout couch they shared, Dean got up quietly. He went over to the kitchenette, dumped all of the cookies in the garbage, rinsed the dish and went back to bed.

He didn't know why. Just that he did.

The next morning, when Sammy asked where the cookies went, he told him they'd gone bad. Dad looked at him for a long moment, but he didn't say anything.

Dean had never touched a chocolate chip cookie ever since.


End file.
